Jay Rosen traces the failure of journalism from Judy Miller to Wikileaks:
When the Society of Professional Journalists gave Miller a First Amendment award it was October of 2005, three years after mushroom cloud Sunday. When David Gregory of NBC said there was nothing wrong with his and his colleagues performance in examining Bush’s case for war (“I think the questions were asked. I think we pushed. I think we prodded…”) six years had elapsed.
[…]In May of 2004, the New York Times, to its great credit, finally went back and looked at its coverage of the build-up to war in Iraq. (Shamefully, NBC and the other networks have never done that.) But the Times did not look at the problem of journalists giving powerful officials a free pass by stripping names from fear-mongering words and just reporting the words, or of newspapers sworn to inform the public keeping secrets from that same (misinformed) public, of reporters getting played and yet refusing to ID the people who played them because they needed to signal some future player that the confidential source game would go on.
Bruce Schneier makes five good points, including this one:
3. I’m not surprised these cables were available to so many people. We know access control is hard, and it’s impossible to know beforehand what information people will need to do their jobs. What is surprising is that there weren’t any audit logs kept about who accessed all these cables. That seems like a no-brainer.
I think State and the Pentagon get the second point, and I’d be surprised if there aren’t significant changes in the way secret information is classified and accessed. I see very little evidence that journalists get the first point.
Zifnab
See, that’s a compelling reason to keep the documents fairly loose. On the flip side, it’s also a compelling reason to declassify the damn things.
Because a) if anyone in the State Department could potentially find the information useful, why are you so jealously guarding it from everyone not in the State Department? and b) voters have a job to do as well, and it’s impossible to be informed citizens if half of what your government does gets stamped classified.
jwb
Matoko_chan in 3… 2.. 1…
Tom Levenson
@Zifnab: This is in fact (what I understand to be) Assange’s goal. If he can make secret government’s less effective, then he wins.
Don’t think it’s going to work out quite the way he imagines, or imagined, but still, it’s a coherent argument.
Kirk Spencer
But there are access logs – or at least there were when I had the darn stuff. But all an access log does is minimize the suspects when figuring out who leaked. It doesn’t do jack for preventing the leak in the first place.
One point Schneier missed that I think is worth adding: the more you secure, the more likely something will escape. It’s one of the problems of over-classifying material that doesn’t get acknowledged. The more you classify, the more people who probably need access to at least part of what you’ve classified. The more people, the more potential leaks. Worse, even though A only needs classified items 100 through 105, unless you’ve gone Tower of Babylon A is also going to be able to see some of 1-99.
One major fix is to bring the over-classification under control. But nobody wants to be the person everyone points to when something’s released that shouldn’t have been.
[edit: and I see zifnab makes the same point in fewer words.]
Omnes Omnibus
@Tom Levenson: A more public government with fewer secrets is a laudable goal, but, like you, I am not sure that Assange has accurately foreseen all the possibilities.
N.B. I will soon be called a cudlip for this comment.
Mnemosyne
I have to agree with Amanda over at Pandagon: this cable is probably the most explosive one yet.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: You are evil. That is all.
liberal
@jwb:
Speaking of MC, I saw this the other day and thought it would blow her mind. Among other things, “The Singularity has [already] happened”!!!
liberal
It was that kind of crap that made me lose all respect for those idiotic journalist organizations. Like that dumbass Lucy Daglish defending JM.
jwb
@Omnes Omnibus: The unforeseen consequences will almost certainly take this whole business someplace completely unexpected if it doesn’t simply sputter out. And even if it follows more or less Assange’s script, we still have to get through the irrational period when the security apparatus turns in on itself (and us) and collapses. I’m not yet convinced this is yet a game changer nor am I yet convinced that some intelligence agency or rogue unit in an intelligence agency isn’t playing Wikileaks. I’m almost certain that everything important is happening out of sight, and all the government (and Wikileak) pronouncements are just so many shiny objects to distract.
Brachiator
The Times also missed the point that Judy Miller apparently agreed with the Bush/Cheney stance on the military and war, and abused her position by acting less like a reporter and more like a willing shill for the Bush Administration. Various Fox pundits, reporters and commentators have effectively destroyed any distinction between journalist and propagandist.
I also recall when conservative radio host Michael Medved and other conservative media figures visited the Bush White House and bleated about how proud they were to have had an “off the record” meeting with the president. Neither they, nor their listeners, had any problem with the notion that some of the later commentary of these hosts may have been shaped by conversations with government officials and might not represent their own “honest opinions.”
@Tom Levenson:
But one problem is that Wikileaks does not release every government’s secret conversations. It’s much like taking the transcript of a wiretap and releasing only one speaker’s conversation.
And after a certain point, the continued indiscriminate leak of material becomes undemocratic. Assange, not the citizens, becomes the arbiter of how the government should operate. This is not the same thing as releasing hidden or suppressed information that might be vital to pressing national events.
Stillwater
Here’s a comment I just posted on a pretty dead two-day-old Wikileaks thread (edited a little):
The first thing worriers of WL have to remind themselves of is that ‘institutions don’t collapse that easily’. And if they do, if they really are that fragile, then they ought to be swept away. Another thing that I completely agree with is that WL is forcing the US to revise it’s protocols regarding internal communications. (As a side note, I’ve been wondering if Cheney-Rumsfeld thesis of ‘intelligence sharing’ is playing a role here: they streamlined internal communications, making them all available from within a single department, which ironically leads to greater access to those wishing to leak that data.)
Finally, WL provides an important function independently of Assange’s ideological goals: some of these communications expose serious crimes, collusion in crimes, etc., but also the seamy side of state=craft that voter/citizens really ought (normative ought) to know about.
In the end, I think WL will achieve some of its goals (a weakening of conspiratorial power) and the US will tighten up an ossified and ridiculous system of communication overly dependent on secrecy. Then the game will start all over again.
Ramiah Ariya
@Brachiator – what you are saying about WikiLeaks is true if you judge the organization and Assange as crusaders or hackers. I don’t.
I simply consider them a news organization, albeit operating with raw data. Therefore I do not understand why your last two paragraphs apply to WikiLeaks – as a news organization they release documents they have access to. What is the problem there?
Ramiah Ariya
Three years from now, the NYT and other major organizations will do a little-bit of soul-searching about the way they have covered the current WikiLeaks fiasco. Then they will issue a report saying there was insufficient skepticism. Then they will close the case and move on to war with Iran.
They have once again misled the public about WikiLeaks and they will do it again to protect the ruling class.
The WikiLeaks coverage in major American newspapers and cable news is no different from the “drumbeat” to war with Iraq.
Mnemosyne
@Ramiah Ariya:
When a news reporter only talks to someone from the Cato Institute about tax policy to write his story, is there a problem there? After all, the Cato Institute makes themselves very available to talk to the press, so it’s totally justified for the reporter to only talk to the people he has access to for his story.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ramiah Ariya: I think this issue is definitional and I think Wikileaks straddles the line between news organization and crusaders for for openness. This is what creates some of the arguments; if they functioned purely as one or the other, it would be easy to judge their effectiveness, etc. They don’t, so it isn’t.
Ramiah Ariya
@Mnemosyne
Sure, but as I said they publish raw stories. AND they attribute statements, at least. In that way I would call them a better news organization than our “insufficient skeptics” who publish “both sides”. After all how many sides did the Mushroom cloud writers consult?
THE
I was arguing this point on an earlier thread.
Now the military get it.
I really think there is a dark secret here about how Manning managed to defeat the encryption protocols.
Assuming there were encryption protocols of course. :p
But that is another and much longer story.
Brachiator
@Ramiah Ariya:
I don’t think you can define news as the releasing of raw data, so I don’t see how Wikileaks remotely qualifies as a news organization.
Also, I would find the Wikileaks information more meaningful if they had access to all government’s information. Some made a big deal about release of details about how the US viewed Britain or North Korea. But there is nothing (for obvious reasons) about how Britain or North Korea views the US.
You can’t argue that the US should have no secrets, but other governments, OK Fine. Nor can you make a good argument that half a story is news or truly meaningful information.
Lastly, leaks, no matter how voluminous, may only be small part of a story, especially if they come from only one source, or come from an uninformed or biased source.
@Mnemosyne:
Great example. And the sad thing is that there are reporters who do exactly this and think that they have sufficiently covered a business story.
THE
Also WL is breaking up.
Forming new breakaway movements.
OpenLeaks
And each imitator will have its own distinct agendas, goals and methods.
So there is no hope of controlling this stuff. None.
Ramiah Ariya
@Brachiator – by the below standards of:
1. You need to consult both sides, even if there are not really two sides involved. (How do the diplomatic cables involve two sides?)
2. If you performed a service against one government you should perform it against others too.
3. Raw data is not news.
4. News has to be meaningful
no news organization will qualify. Least of all the current American media. I think you are setting standards that you will not apply to other organizations.
sukabi
the one thing that bugs me about discussions of “media failure” is that EVERYONE seems to take it as a failure of people to do their jobs, they don’t seem to consider that the state of our media could in fact be the result of groups of “journalists” doing the jobs they were paid to do, which is to sow misinformation/propaganda.
Sure a lot of it is due to the push for “ratings”, but not all of it can be attributed to that… Judy Miller is one such case. It’s not like this country doesn’t have a history with media manipulation…. take Operation Mockingbird for instance… while some major “media institutions” were named, individuals were not…
Mnemosyne
@Ramiah Ariya:
Don’t you find it odd that you’re celebrating Wikileaks for doing the same thing you bashed the New York Times for doing with Iraq?
Brachiator
@Ramiah Ariya:
If I didn’t make this clear, let me do so now. Raw data is not news. News has to have a context to be meaningful. Reporters are not stenographers, or should not be.
I’ve worked for newspapers and have had the great pleasure to have known some good publishers, including Otis Chandler, the late publisher of the LA Times. My standards are based on my knowledge and experience. Doesn’t make me absolutely right, but I think it does give me a little perspective.
And yeah, for the most part current American media fails my standards.
Ramiah Ariya
@Mnemosyne – First, We can go into nuance there; such as comparing the article that led to a war killing 100,000 with a set of cables that shows how the US government functions.
Secondly, I am not celebrating WikiLeaks. I am just asking that they be judged as a news organization; and that the questions we ask of them are questions that we ask of ANY news organization.
“Is your news meaningful to me?” is not something we ask other such organizations (atleast publicly).
Thirdly, what other side should WikiLeaks have consulted, before they released the cables? WikiLeaks after passed no commentary on the cables. Therefore I don’t see the “other side” here.
Martin
Access control has been a big effort by Obama. Under the old DHS rules, every agency had their own classification schemes – mainly to make sure that CIA never got a peek at FBI docs. Obama wiped that out and mandated that material be shared across agencies because it was clearly interfering with dealing with actual threats. How can the FBI deal with terrorists working with foreign support if the intel on the foreign supporters isn’t available to them? As a result, under Obama the lesser classified materials have become far more open and accessible so that people can do their job. Indirectly, this has led to these leaks where DOD folks gained access to State intel – something that might have been possible before, but is certainly encouraged and actively pursue now.
But like I’ve said many times, managing large numbers of secrets with large numbers of secret-holder is really goddman hard. Schneier makes a great point about access logs, but I’m not sure he’s factually correct there. I know that access logs are used, but not sure how widely. It’s actually one of those things where the access logs, and the existence and mechanism of the access logs would be far more highly classified than the material in question here. After all, that’s the backbone of the counter-espionage effort, and as you go down the espionage recursion hole, secrecy increases exponentially.
Ramiah Ariya
@Brachiator – I meant the meaningful comment as an example of a subjective assessment. WikiLeaks data is certainly thought of as meaningful by the millions who consume them through their respective news organizations. For example, I thought the cables on the Indian Security Council bid “meaningful”.
matoko_chan
Two BETTER reads on WL.
Scientific American says WL cannot be turned off or shut down….at least not by the powerless Hyperpower.. and what the diplo cables really mean.
Two Handed Engine
also too.
appears to be about 20 new mirrors per hour.
perhaps we should spend less time talking about what Assange means to do, and more about what he is actully doing right NAOW.
Brachiator
@Ramiah Ariya:
Yep, some of the reaction to the Wikileaks material about Pakistan and India has been very interesting.
Seems to me that the world might benefit greatly if someone found a way to leak Pakistan and Indian government information on the same level as the American leaks. Wouldn’t this provide a more rounded picture of each governments’ position?
Wouldn’t it be good to know how Pakistan views its military ambitions or how the Indian government views its desire for a seat on the UN Security Council?
THE
Actually it’s bizarre to me that India is not a permanent member of the UNSC.
Soon to be the largest most populous country on Earth.
Even now number 2.
rageahol
@THE:
This reminds me of the ??AA’s efforts to “close the analog hole”
Ramiah Ariya
@Brachiator – I would love to. I think the only difference is that the Indian government craps a lot on its own people, and therefore I would love the leaks of information such as this.
In the “Radia tapes” as they are called, a lobbyist tells prominent journalists what to write. The tapes highlight crony capitalism and nepotism in the Indian government at the highest level.
Mnemosyne
@Ramiah Ariya:
I’m pointing out that we constantly BASH those news organizations for doing what Wikileaks is doing, so I really don’t understand how “they’re just doing what everyone else in the media does” is a defense.
And “the other side” would be the other countries involved in those cables: China, Saudi Arabia, India, etc. Are there really absolutely no disgruntled bureaucrats in any of those countries who would be willing to supply information to Wikileaks? Or are they going after the US because (a) they’re the big dog and (b) everything is in English so they don’t have to translate it?
Ramiah Ariya
@Mnemosyne – Between the NYT’s coverage of Iraq and WikiLeaks’s release of the diplomatic cables, there is a difference – NYT was dealing with something that was verifiable to a certain extent. Government officials asserted certain statements and the NYT reported them.
The WikiLeaks cables on the other hand seem authentic – they have not been made up by WikiLeaks or anyone. Therefore it is an authentic raw story. WikiLeaks does not comment on the cables – it simply makes them available. I would argue that based on that alone, what the NYT does and what WL does are not comparable.
Your question about China, Saudi Arabia etc puzzles me – I think they will publish information if they had them. Are you saying they are sitting on leaks from other countries? WL came into prominence with their leaks on the Kenyan government and the Iceland banks.
But people are far more INTERESTED in the US cables because, let us face it, you are the current superpower. And you do not hesitate to use that power.
Mark S.
@Mnemosyne:
They have leaked things from other countries.
Schneier:
As I’ve been saying, we can safely assume Russia, China, Iran, Israel, and damn near every other country in the world already had access to all of this stuff if it was that easy. That for me is the real scandal of this whole thing.
Brachiator
@Ramiah Ariya:
Thanks for the link. Very interesting stuff. And highlights the value of putting the spotlight on a number of countries.
THE
@rageahol:
Yeah I see the similarity.
Jay in Oregon
@Mnemosyne:
SERIOUSLY??? **headdesk**
matoko_chan
@Ramiah Ariya:
but that is not at all what WL is.
Wikileaks is a New Event, a New Paradigm.
the US is just another closed information system for Assanges prototype to test on.
Doing the US first is BECAUSE of Bradley Manning.
if WL works as designed it is the ELE of the modern security state.
of ALL modern security states.
;)
matoko_chan
@Ramiah Ariya: you abd Brach should read Assanges mission statement.
right here.
Assange targeted the US first because he had Manning as a leaker….it is Assanges design to have a thousand leaks bloom….in all the unjust security states in the wide wide world.
Mnemosyne
@Jay in Oregon:
You did follow the link, right?
Jay in Oregon
@Mnemosyne:
Of course. :P
THE
@Matoko:
It won’t work,
For at least the following four reasons:
1. Too much collateral damage will persuade more nations the web is becoming so malignant that they need to close off, with firewalls.
2. The metastasizing of “Leak Servers” into more and more different kinds, with more and more different agendas, means their motives and methods will become more corrupted.
3. Security companies will update their security software, to include mandatory encrypting of all storage, even the elimination of terminal storage in favor of centralized server-based storage. Why do you even need output ports for cdrom or flash drive or even a hard drive on a computer that is connected through fast optical fiber to a secure encrypted network?
4. The provision of Host Based Security Systems that automatically monitor the system for anamolous behavior, such as someone downloading Gigs of files that are outside any obvious needs.
It’s an arms race matoko, between the secret keepers and the secret leakers. Sometimes one side is ahead for a little while. But it never lasts.
And with Moore’s law meaning that computers gets exponentially more powerful every year, the technology will keep evolving to respond to threats as they emerge.
Also check this pdf file from DARPA
matoko_chan
@THE:
It is WORKING RIGHT NAOW.
dumbass.
THE
@matoko_chan:
It’s worked ONCE.
The system is already responding to prevent it ever happening again. Read the freakin’ literature.
matoko_chan
@THE: they cant turn it off.
and everything they try, brings the Powerless Hyperpower closer to becoming a police state.
scientific american. If the land of the free becomes a police state in response to paranoia infection, WIKILEAKS WINS!
The cat-and-mouse game that WikiLeaks is playing with authorities worldwide is a prime example of the persistence of information on the Internet. Of course, the cat is fully out of the bag now that media outlets are reporting extensively on the contents of the leaked files, but why couldn’t the U.S. government or some other entity simply shut down direct access to WikiLeaks’s cablegate files?
You can shut down a Web site, but there’s no question an individual intent on distributing that information will already have thought about keeping a copy of it in multiple other locations, either online or offline. When you run a Web site, if you’re worried about an attack on that Web site, whether it’s a distributed denial-of-service attack or some sort of virus attack, the best solution to those worries is to create backup plans. There could be a copy of that information sitting on a thumb drive that everyone buys at Costco for really cheap nowadays. It could be backed up on a CD. It could be stored with a cloud network storage company that can be accessed from anywhere. That’s why this is a pretty significant challenge for the government to try to shut down a site—the task is, frankly, impossible.
What can be done to stem the tide of information?
If you think [Assange] has done something criminal in nature and against national security, then focus on the arrest and prosecution, and focus on recovering the diplomatic damage that’s already been done.
Over the past week, the WikiLeaks Web site has been brought down due to distributed denial-of-service [DOS] attacks, and then subsequently brought back online. What tools and techniques are available to Web sites to enable them to route and re-route access?
One tool is redirection, where you could have 10 different Web site addresses set up that send you to a particular location. [For example, readers who visit SciAm.com will automatically be redirected to ScientificAmerican.com.] Another option is to set up mirror sites—if the core Web server goes down, there’s another Web server at a different location that will have the exact same look, feel and content. Redirects and mirror sites are common and they’re necessary in order to run a legitimate business online.
Beyond the proactive steps that can be taken, the Web keeps a cache of data even after it has been taken offline. Google is a perfect example of a data cache—it doesn’t actually go out on the Internet and crawl with its crawling capabilities to go find what you’re looking for and bring it back to you each time you do a search. It’s already done that; it’s spent hours and hours of background computing time crawling the Web, sorting it and organizing it, putting it in a way that when you search for something, Google goes into its own cached data set to find it. The history maintained by your Web browser is another example of a data cache. In addition, some Web searches will return listings containing a “cached” hyperlink. When you click on that link, the original site may not exist, but the cache may still be there. It can take anywhere from three months to a year for Web browsers to re-crawl the Internet and update their cache to shed deleted Web pages.
matoko_chan
@THE: it only has to work once to change the world forever.
:)
THE
Bullshit matoko.
The security companies are already revamping their software and technology
to learn from the lessons and challenges posed by Wikileaks.
You only see the one side.
You don’t even bother to research the other side.
No one can stop WL and its hundreds of imitators from circulating data once it leaks. True.
But there will never be another leaker like Manning.
Not from any modern nation.
The system is evolving rapidly to plug the holes he exposed.
THE
@matoko_chan:
Matoko, you wouldn’t read the article I linked before.
The world is on the cusp of changing forever anyway.
But it won’t be because of one leak of relatively low level data.
No matter how large.
There are much more important things happening
that you don’t even care about or look at.
matoko_chan
@THE: as the security state evolves, the hacktivists evolve. He who writes the ice, owns the ice.
strong AI is 20 years behind the chanese.
the CONFIDENTIAL diplo cables are not intended to muckrake…there is nothing that significant there ….how many times do i have FUCKING TELL YOU?
it is a constant drip of paranoia infection, intended to create paranoia reflex that clogs and/or frags OODA loops.
SO FAR IT IS WAI.
and the powerless Hyperpower cant turn it off.
matoko_chan
BULLSHYTT. what is happening is that America is becoming a police state.
if that happens, Assange wins.
it is what he designed.
matoko_chan
and…..the only thing that can stop Assanges system killer from causing the security state to self destruct….is the judiciary.
interesting times..
this is a test of the Founders design against Assanges design.
THE
@matoko_chan:
I have to disagree.
The material that is labeled NoFor or whatever the code is that signifies “not for foreigners”,
is mostly comments that would cause far more problems to allies than to the United States.
If I look at the stuff that is about Australia,
it is quite damaging to my country’s interests.
I already mentioned the assets list.
But there is other stuff too.
The comments about former PM Rudd (now Foreign Minister)
about the circumstances under which we should attack China, (if accurately reported)
were intended as private communications between close Allies,
with a long history of close military cooperation.
They have already caused strong reactions from China
and could materially harm my country’s relationships with China.
At the very least they could seriously damage Rudd’s career.
Remember similar stuff is happening to every US ally.
I also found noteworthy the release of the plans to defend Poland and the Baltic States.
My impression is that the leaks are not so damaging to USA,
which is maybe why they were only Confidential,
but they include stuff that is far more damaging to allies.
Maybe no individual leak is critical,
but the cumulative effect of thousands of leaks is worrying.
That is why I keep focusing on collateral damage.
We are being harmed much more than USA,
and that’s why I keep emphasizing to you that when you release diplomatic communications,
you are often harming two countries,
not just the one you wish to harm.
The main effect I see in the leaks so far is that they are seriously impacting the international arena.
But maybe not having so much direct effect on USA.
The world is becoming a more dangerous place.
The work of generations to create harmonious international relations is being undermined.
Is this the target you meant to harm?
THE
I think you exaggerate.
What I think will happen is that the next two or three releases of enterprise Windows
will be far more focused on security improvements.
Because this will be the main focus of virtually every enterprise customer,
worried about becoming the leakers’ next target.
For instance I think Bitlocker & BL-To-Go encryption will become “on by default”.
I think you will need System Administrator privileges to override it on a case-by-case basis.
It was already intended that this would be the last generation of BIOS-based computers.
There is a new paradigm called UEFI.
I think there will be a lot more focus now on securing it.
And so it goes across the board.
Technology that was once applied only in the tightest military installations
will become standard across all enterprises.
But much of it will be incorporated in smarter implementations of software,
and different hardware configurations.
If you read the stuff I linked above about new chip technology that will scale to faster computers.
You need to understand that coming generations of CPU chips
will almost certainly encrypt every outgoing data stream.
There will be no unencrypted data streams outside the main CPU chip,
unless they are specifically authorized by a SysAdmin.
Also almost all data streams will be optical.
The age of electronic data buses is rapidly drawing to a close.
Legacy applications like USB mp3 players, etc,
will only exist on low-security personal computers.
They won’t be allowed anywhere near any enterprise machine.
No ports will allow them to plug in.
No unencrypted data flows will exist for them to record.
I am no expert in this field but even I can see what is coming.
matoko_chan
@THE: no you cannot.
what is happening is the end of the Hyperpower Hegemony.
the new arms race is human capital, and until Strong AI becomes a reality, the US is a relative pauper.
you KNOW we are 20 years out….at least. If Dr. Hamerhoff is right about the number of computations we are 200 years out.
Now the chains of global loyalty are come unforged.
Nations will look out for their own interests instead of being bullied or bribed or tricked by the Hyperpower.
It is a greek tragedy come to life for America, the Grand Experiment That Failed….olbos, koros, hubris, ate.
every increase in security comes with an increase in the cognitive secrecy tax– systems capital paid in connectivity and speed.
the OODA loop killer.
Asssanges system killer prototype IS RUNNING RIGHT NAOW.
It seems to be WORKING AS INTENDED.
And the Powerless Hyperpower CANNOT FUCKING TURN IT OFF.
matoko_chan
and Spock.
one more thing you simply cannot get your head around.
we are MOAR EVIL than the Chinese.
because we pretend that we are not evil a’tall.
THE
@matoko_chan:
This we agree about, but not because of your latest crush Assange.
Listen.
Sweetheart, darling, girl of my dreams, pretty please.
Read The Frakin Article I Linked
Yes, I am inclined to agree that this is a real possibility.
It could mean we will all need our own nuclear deterrent.
It could mean the end of the Non Proliferation Treaty.
Nukes everywhere. Thanks a lot wikileaks.
THE
The concepts “good and evil” are metaphysical categories that really don’t exist in my universe,
except as poetic metaphors.
USA, China, all of us, are organizations of Darwinian agents,
They act as Darwinian agents all the time.
The different nations merely use different strategies,
of differing degrees of sophistication.
China has been playing for a very long time.
She is very skillful.
There is much to learn from her, and about her.
~~~
For me everything is the struggle of the genes for survival at the nth degree of meta.
Didn’t you say once?
One of your more memorable lines,
“There is no true altruism in Nature”.
matoko_chan
That is Dawkins, and i quoted that before i reverted.
I guess it is even true….but i have now learned the supernatural.
27. They asked her about love. She said, “Love came down from an eternity [azal] and passed over to eternity [abad]. It found no one in eighteen thousand worlds to take a single drink of it. It arrived at last to the real, and of him this expression remains: He loves them and they love him.”
They said, “Do you see the one you worship?”
She said, “If I did not see, I would not worship.” – Rabi’a al-Adiwyya
THE
I wish you would talk about this more sometimes.
I find the concept of supernatural to be incoherent.
As a monist, for me all Nature is the real.
To be super-natural would be like being higher than high or deeper than deep. It is unnecessary overkill.
I guess Nature is for me the completeness that God is for you.
I don’t need the love; since I understand that Nature transcends love/hate and all dualities.
I also understand that love cannot be without its opposite.
Just like you can’t have hills without valleys or wave peaks without troughs.
THE
And also, worship is a difficult concept for me.
For it implies submission before the other.
But Nature is not the other to me.
I am in Nature and Nature is in me.
I am one of Nature’s more interesting games, one of its performances.
And it is my substrate my ground.
Quoting Alan Watts, who was long one of my favorite philosophers when I was young.
I still echo him often.
You don’t come into the world.
You come out of it, like a leaf comes out of a tree.
THE
I guess deep down my love, I am just another atheist cat.